A performer who earns his living through specialty farting. If that strikes
you as a good idea for a musical, you'll probably find The Fartiste worth
the trek to the Lower East Side's Harry de Jur playhouse. But please be
forewarned: You'll have to really, really love this concept to survive 90+
minutes of this Fringe Festival show by Charles Schulman (original story and
book) and Michael Roberts (music and lyrics), who coast so much in writing
it that they give the Eastern Seaboard a real run for its money.

Their show is based on the true story of French professional gas-passer
Joseph Pujol, whose unique gifts earned him a regular berth at the Belle
Époque Moulin Rouge. Given the show's general leanings, it might
as well have been named Sunday with the Farts and Joe: It paints Pujol
(Kevin Kraft) as a terminally misunderstood, frustrated artist who wants
great things (he dreams of an entirely farted symphony), but cruelly isn't
allowed to escape his popular niche.

Despite being stuffed with all the usual stock characters - a supporting
but dubious wife (Rebecca Kupka), the saucy temptress who wants the star for
herself (Lyn Philistine), the sleazy act booker (Jim Corti) determined to
keep Pujol in his place, the Moulin Rouge host (Nick Wyman) only a step away
from Cabaret's emcee - one simple fact remains: This show exists solely to
explore how far it can push its absurd premise.

It's easy to imagine Schulman and Roberts chortling while writing their
various ballads and inspirationals about wind-breaking, thinking they'd pass
off the entire show as some grand theatrical statement about art's inversely
proportionate relationship to fame, when it's really just about farting.
But lyrics like "My dream man was born of tradition / With a good job and
staid disposition / But the man that I love / Works in a crouching position"
make it impossible to take their story seriously. So, for that matter, does
Mark Baker's scampering around on his knees all evening in a bizarre,
borderline-offensive imitation of Toulouse-Lautrec that doesn't rank as one
of director John Gould Rubin's better ideas.

As this is a show built on bad ideas, it's unsurprisingly stuffed with such
excess: Nearly every non-Pujol song could be cut (including everything for
the magnetic but robotic Wyman), and the performances are more dutifully
ghoulish than dramatically integrated. Nearly everyone is as strictly
professional as they are forgettable, singing and dancing (the cluttered
choreography is by Richard Move) prettily in service of nothing of
consequence. At least the six-piece orchestra (under the baton of the
excellent orchestrator, John Baxindine) masterfully communicates the
broken-down beauty the Moulin Rouge celebrated; if this show lacks many
things, flavor isn't among them.

Nor is good sound: Pujol's artistic expressions are all given form by vocal
effects maestro Steven Scott, the evening's true find. There aren't any
flatulence-inspired sounds he can't create with his mouth and hands, and
he's required to vocalize barnyard animals, orchestral instruments, and
practically everything in between. (Actors, take note: This is the purpose
of the "special skills" section on your resume.) So it's perhaps ironic,
given Pujol's treatment, that Scott is relegated to a microphone stage left
and not allowed to bask in the center-stage spotlight he deserves. (He
certainly trumps Kraft in the personality department; is there no way he
could play the role alone?)

Unfortunately, Scott is never given the opportunity to recreate the real
Pujol's tour-de-force interpretation of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake,
which would undoubtedly have been a stunning showstopper. But since we've
almost certainly not heard the last of The Fartiste (if Urinetown can hit
the big time, so can this), there's still time for Schulman and Roberts to
work it in.